The Commercial Restraints of Ireland

by John Hely-Hutchinson

The Act of Settlement, passed in Ireland the year before this restrictive law, and the explanatory statute for the settlement of this kingdom, was not enacted until two years after. The country continued for a considerable time in a state of litigation, which is never favourable to industry. In 1661, the people must have been poor; the number of them of all degrees who paid poll money in that year was about 360,000.[392] In 1672, when the country had greatly improved, the manufacture bestowed upon a year’s exportation from Ireland did not exceed eight thousand pounds,[393] and the clothing trade had not then arrived to what it had been before the last rebellion. But still the kingdom had much increased in wealth, though not in manufactured exports. The customs which set in 1656 for £12,000 yearly were, in 1672, worth £80,000[394] yearly, and the improvement in domestic wealth, that is to say, in building, planting, furniture, coaches, &c., is said to have advanced from 1652 to 1673 in a proportion of from one to four. Sir William Petty, in the year 1672, complains not of the restraints on the exportation from Ireland to America,[395] but of the prohibition of exporting our cattle to England, and of our being obliged to unlade in that kingdom[396] the ships bound from America to Ireland, the latter regulation he considers as highly prejudicial to this country.[396]

The immediate object of Ireland at this time seems to have been to get materials to employ her people at home, without thinking of foreign exportations. When we advanced in the export of our woollen goods the law of 1663,[397] which excluded them from the American markets, must have been a great loss to this kingdom; and after we were allowed to export our linens to the British colonies in America, the restraints imposed by the law of 1670 upon our importations from thence became more prejudicial, and will be much more so if ever the late extension of our exports to America should under those restraints have any effect. For it is certainly a great discouragement to the carrying on trade with any country where we are allowed only to sell our manufactures and produce, but are not permitted to carry from them directly to our own country their principal manufactures or produce. The people to whom we are thus permitted to sell want the principal inducement for dealing with us, and the great spring of commerce, which is mutual exchange, is wanting between us.

As the British legislature has thought it reasonable to extend, to a very considerable degree, our exportation to their colonies, and has, doubtless, intended that this favour should be useful to Ireland, it is hoped that those restraints on the importation from thence, which must render that favour of little effect, will be no longer continued.

From those considerations it is evident that many strong reasons respecting Ireland are now to be found against the continuance of those restrictive laws of 1663 and 1670, that did not exist at the time of making them.

The prohibition of 1699 was immediately and universally felt in this country; but in the course of human events various and powerful reasons have arisen against the continuance of that statute, which did not exist, and could not have been foreseen when it was enacted.

At the Restoration the inhabitants of Ireland consisted of three different nations—English, Scotch, and Irish—divided by political and religious principles, exasperated against each other by former animosities, and by present contests for property. When the settlement of the country was completed, the people became industrious, manufactures greatly increased, and the kingdom began to flourish. The prohibition of exporting cattle to England, and perhaps that of importing directly from America the materials of other manufactures, obliged the Irish to increase and to manufacture their own material. They made so great a progress in both, from 1672 to 1687, that in the latter year the exports of the woollen manufacture alone amounted in value to £70,521 14s. 0d.

But the religious and civil animosities continued. The papists objected to the settlement of property made after the Restoration,[398] wished to reverse the outlawries, and to rescind the laws on which that settlement was founded, hoped to establish their own as the national religion, to get the power of the kingdom into their own hands, and to effect all those purposes by a king of their own religion. They endeavoured to attain all those objects by laws[399] passed at a meeting which they called a parliament, held under this prince after his abdication; and by their conduct at this period, as well as in the year 1642,[400] showed dispositions unfavourable to the subordination of Ireland to the Crown of England. They could not be supposed to be well affected to that great prince who defeated all their purposes.

At the time of the revolution the numbers of our people were again very much reduced; but a great majority of the remaining inhabitants consisted of papists. Those, notwithstanding their disappointment at that era, were thought to entertain expectations of the restoration of their Popish king, and designs unfavourable to the established constitution in Church and State. It is not to the present purpose to inquire how long this disposition prevailed. It cannot be doubted but that this was the opinion conceived of their views and principles at the time of passing this law in the year 1699.

England could not then consider a country under such unfortunate circumstances as any great additional strength to it. Foreign Protestants were invited to settle in it, and the emigration of papists in great numbers to other countries was allowed, if not encouraged. Though at this period a regard to liberty as well as to economy, occasioned the disbanding of all the army in England, except 7,000, it was thought necessary for the security of Ireland that an army of 12,000 men should be kept there; and for many years afterwards it was not allowed that this army should be recruited in this kingdom. This distinction of parties in Ireland was in those times the mainspring in every movement relative to that kingdom, and affected not only political but commercial regulations. The reason assigned by the English statute, allowing the exportation of Irish linen cloth to the plantations, is, after reciting the restrictive law of 1663,[401] “yet, forasmuch as the Protestant interest of Ireland ought to be supported, by giving the utmost encouragement to the linen manufactures of that kingdom, in tender regard to her Majesty’s good Protestant subjects of her said kingdom, be it enacted,” &c.

The papists, then disabled from acquiring permanent property in lands, had not the same interest with Protestants in the defence of their country and in the prosperity of the British Empire. But those seeds of disunion and diffidence no longer remain. No man looks now for the return of the exiled family any more than for that of Perken Warbec; and the repeal of Magna Charta is as much expected as of the Act of Settlement. The papists, indulged with the exercise of their religious worship, and now at liberty to acquire permanent property in lands, are interested as well as Protestants in the security and prosperity of this country; and sensible of the benign influence of our Sovereign, and of the protection and happiness which they enjoy under his reign, seem to be as well affected to the King and to the constitution of the State as any other class of subjects, and at this most dangerous crisis have contributed their money to raise men for his Majesty’s service, and declared their readiness, had the laws permitted, to have taken arms for the defence of their country. They owe much to the favour and protection of the Crown, and to the liberal and benevolent spirit of the British legislature which led the way to their relief, and they are peculiarly interested to cultivate the good opinion of their Sovereign, and of their fellow-subjects in Great Britain.